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Published: March 22nd 2015
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Change of a Lifetime
So this is my first time writing a blog, but it's not the first time I've been to Japan. In fact, it's my fifth, I think. Kinda strange, don't you think? The excitement, the enthusiasm and the adrenaline rush flowing out of the words of a blogger (sometimes in the form of unnoticed grammatical mistakes) wouldn't show that obviously when he/she's been to the same place five times over. Nah-uh, definitely not, BUT, this is my FIRST time traveling ALONE to ANYWHERE and that alone, I believe, is enough to compensate. I assure you, traveling alone to somewhere, even when you've been there with your friends and families multiple times, constitutes a whole new experience. The thrill and adventurous feeling of staying in a foreign land all by yourself...fellow lone travelers, I'm sure you get me.
Okay, let's cut to the chase.
It was midnight. I was bidding farewell to my friends and families whom I wouldn't see (in person) for another 4 months or so. Honestly, I really appreciated the fact that they took the time to send me off, despite then being midnight and some of my friends had to rush
out deadlines etc. you know #typicalunilife. I braced myself as I entered the custom immigration. I know that the moment I stepped in, my life would change, or more precisely, I wanted my life to change. I wanted to make the best out of these 4 months and the first step to it was to start keeping track of my life instead of just living it out just like that. So I walked and walked for like I dunno, 15 mins? My boarding gate happened to be the last of the last ._. But oh well, good exercise. I looked around to find a good seat after which I could start randomly snapping random snapshots for the first phase of this "Change". Tada! *Boarding Ticket*. (Okay from now on, *something* will refer to a specific title of picture I would have uploaded. I'm not too sure how I can arrange my pics nicely in this blog yet, so for now they're just a chunk of random pictures all over the page, so please bear with them for the time being.)
Everything went really smoothly. The flights (with transit) were on schedule, in fact I arrived 10 minutes earlier than
the stated arrival time. And I walked through this long path with an awesome wide view of the airport apron. Snap! *Walking towards Immigration*. OMG, I suck at taking pictures. Maybe coz I don't usually do this, but I promise you, I will improve. The custom checkpoint wasn't too bad, in fact the officers were friendly enough to chat a little with me after realizing that I'm an exchange student. And so I arrived at Narita International Airport Terminal 2, and I had to go to Terminal 1 before moving on to my accommodation place. Here's something useful to know when going to Japan for traveling. You can actually get a 3G SIM card online through websites like e-connect and get them to mail it over to Narita Airport, your residential area etc. It's pretty convenient actually, though a little pricey. But then again, with 3G, you can almost never get lost and there are so many things 3G can offer. Upon claiming my order, I hastily replaced my current SIM card with Japan 3G SIM card. And because of that, I didn't get to take a shot of the brand new shiny unopened package. But fret not, SNAP! *3G
SIM card*. I managed to salvage the remnants of it. They provide very detailed instructions for the setup, so as long as you understand English (Instructions were in English), I think all will be fine.
Moving on with life, I dragged my 21kg luggage and a bunch of souvenirs I brought for some of my local friends towards the train station. SNAP "First Train Ride". Transportation in Japan burns a huge hole in your wallet. I can safely say that even your meals may be cheaper than transportation at times. That's totally the opposite for Singapore. So, with a hole in my heart, I went towards the designated train. Luckily for me, I found a seat by the corner, so I could lean as it was a whooping 76 mins train ride all the way to Yamanote Loop (It's this loop that bypasses some of the major city areas in Tokyo). I rented a room in that area so, 76 mins. Now you know why I hastily tore open the envelope before entering the train? It's hard to get by without Internet nowadays. I could have read a book, but I was too tired from the lack of sleep
during the flight. So, 76 mins later, I reached the Yamanote Loop and I had to switch over for Mejiro, but that wasn't the end of the nightmare. I had to drag my 30kg worth of stuff round and round until I finally reached my accommodation area. Getting lost and finding your way around is never the bad part of traveling, in fact it's one of the best part of it. The nightmare of traveling is when your luggage does not co-operate with you by having its own wheels twisting around at awkward positions, making the one dragging it awkward as well. And so the awkward walk resumed for at least 15 mins from the train station to my lodging. *Home Sweet Home*.
Back to the transportation topic, I think it's a great idea to get Suica pass or Passmo, see *Suica Pass*. It's like a rechargeable pass that allows you to enter and exit train station without having to purchase a ticket every single time you enter the train station and of course, provided you've managed to decipher the hieroglyph above the ticket counters. Well even if you couldn't, you could have spoken with the officers, but all
of it just sounds pretty troublesome. With one of the above-mentioned passes (there are actually a lot more, but the differences between them are minor), you can just enter and exit the trains and subway without having to worry about the exact fares you have to look out for when doing it the manual and tedious way, but then again, don't blame me if you get a shock of your life when you realize you are only able to use your Suica pass once after topping it up 3,000 Yen.
Today, I didn't travel a lot. I merely did some exploring around the vicinity. Weather was pretty cold, around 15 degrees. Even though I was shivering, I felt refreshed. Back in Singapore, we don't experience chilling winds like this. I wish I could keep track of awesome sensations like this one. It got dark really quickly, maybe coz I didn't keep track of time, but I managed to find my trusty, favorite fast-food place that happens to be all over Japan...Matsuya(松屋). *Matsuya*. Matsuya offers really good food for the price. My personal favorite is the *Beef Set Meal*. It comes with everything in the picture as well as a
salad, but because I'm not exactly a fan of salad, I always tell them not to waste the salad on me. The entire set cost about 690 Yen, and note that my rice was actually 特盛, which translates to "Special Serving", that just means a double upsize. See the rack of sauce on the top left corner of the picture? I still haven't polished my skills enough, but at least you can see that they are sauces. So they offer a variety of sauce as well, which you can use to drown your food, if you'd like. I personally like the Barbeque and Calpis sauce so I'll usually just pour both of them onto my beef and the final product will taste really great.
Day 1 has been pretty tiring, even though I did not really have an itinerary to today. Well the plane and train ride took a toll on me, so I thought I should just give myself a break as well. I look forward to more eventful days to come.
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